Apple Lisa
Encyclopedia
The Apple Lisa—also known as the Lisa—is a :personal computer designed by Apple Computer, Inc. (now Apple, Inc.) during the early 1980s.

Development of the Lisa began in 1978 as a powerful personal computer with a graphical user interface
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...

 (GUI) targeted toward business customers.

In 1982, Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs
Steven Paul Jobs was an American businessman and inventor widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution. He was co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc...

 was forced out of the Lisa project, so he joined the Macintosh project instead. The Macintosh is not a direct descendant of Lisa, although there are obvious similarities between the systems and the final revision, the Lisa 2/10, was modified and sold as the Macintosh XL
Macintosh XL
Macintosh XL was a modified version of the Apple Lisa personal computer made by Apple Computer, Inc. In the Macintosh XL configuration, the computer shipped with MacWorks XL, a Lisa program that allowed 64 K Macintosh ROM emulation...

.

The Lisa was a more advanced system than the Macintosh of that time in many respects, such as its inclusion of protected memory, cooperative multitasking, a generally more sophisticated hard disk based operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

, a built-in screensaver
Screensaver
A screensaver is a type of computer program initially designed to prevent phosphor burn-in on CRT and plasma computer monitors by blanking the screen or filling it with moving images or patterns when the computer is not in use...

, an advanced calculator with a paper tape and RPN, support for up to two megabyte
Megabyte
The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000...

s (MB) of RAM
Ram
-Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...

, expansion slots, a numeric keypad, data corruption protection schemes such as block sparing, non-physical file names (with the ability to have multiple documents with the same name), and a larger higher-resolution display. It would be many years before many of those features were implemented on the Macintosh platform. Protected memory
Memory protection
Memory protection is a way to control memory access rights on a computer, and is a part of most modern operating systems. The main purpose of memory protection is to prevent a process from accessing memory that has not been allocated to it. This prevents a bug within a process from affecting...

, for instance, did not arrive until the Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

 operating system was released in 2001. The Macintosh featured a faster 68000
Motorola 68000
The Motorola 68000 is a 16/32-bit CISC microprocessor core designed and marketed by Freescale Semiconductor...

 processor
Microprocessor
A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and...

 (7.89 MHz) and sound. The complexity of the Lisa operating system and its programs taxed the 5 MHz Motorola 68000 microprocessor so that consumers said it felt sluggish, particularly when scrolling in documents.

Etymology

While the documentation shipped with the original Lisa only ever referred to it as The Lisa, officially, Apple stated that the name was an acronym for Local Integrated Software Architecture or "LISA". Since Steve Jobs' first daughter (born in 1978) was named Lisa Nicole Brennan
Lisa Brennan-Jobs
Lisa Nicole Brennan-Jobs is an American journalist and magazine writer. She is the daughter of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Chris-Ann Brennan.- Early life :...

, it is normally inferred that the name also had a personal association, and perhaps that the acronym was invented later to fit the name. Andy Hertzfeld
Andy Hertzfeld
Andy Hertzfeld is a computer scientist who was a member of the original Apple Macintosh development team during the 1980s. After buying an Apple II in January 1978, he went to work for Apple Computer from August 1979 until March 1984, where he was a designer for the Macintosh system software...

 states that the acronym was reverse engineered
Backronym
A backronym or bacronym is a phrase constructed purposely, such that an acronym can be formed to a specific desired word. Backronyms may be invented with serious or humorous intent, or may be a type of false or folk etymology....

 from the name "Lisa" in autumn 1982 by the Apple marketing team, after they had hired a marketing consultancy firm to come up with names to replace "Lisa" and "Macintosh" (at the time considered by Rod Holt, vice president of engineering to be merely internal project codenames) and then rejected all of the suggestions. Privately, Hertzfeld and the other software developers used "Lisa: Invented Stupid Acronym", a recursive
Recursive acronym
A recursive acronym is an acronym or initialism that refers to itself in the expression for which it stands...

 backronym
Backronym
A backronym or bacronym is a phrase constructed purposely, such that an acronym can be formed to a specific desired word. Backronyms may be invented with serious or humorous intent, or may be a type of false or folk etymology....

, while computer industry pundits coined the term "Let's Invent Some Acronym" to fit the Lisa's name. Decades later, Jobs would tell his biographer Walter Isaacson
Walter Isaacson
Walter Isaacson is a writer and biographer. He is the President and CEO of the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C. He has been the Chairman and CEO of CNN and the Managing Editor of TIME...

: "Obviously it was named for my daughter."

Development

The project began in 1978 as an effort to create a more modern version of the then-conventional design epitomized by the Apple II
Apple II
The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977...

. Initial team lead Ken Rothmuller was soon replaced by John Couch
John Couch (American executive)
John Couch is an American technology executive most closely associated with Apple, Inc. He currently serves as the company's Vice President of Education....

, under whose direction the project evolved to the 'windows & mouse-driven' form that was finally released. Trip Hawkins
Trip Hawkins
William M. 'Trip' Hawkins III is a Silicon Valley American entrepreneur and founder of Electronic Arts, The 3DO Company and Digital Chocolate....

, who was then on the marketing team for the nascent Lisa project, and Jef Raskin
Jef Raskin
Jef Raskin was an American human-computer interface expert best known for starting the Macintosh project for Apple in the late 1970s.-Early years and education:...

 contributed to the change in design.

Several years prior to this, research had been going on at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center to create a new way to organize everything on the screen, today known as the desktop
Desktop computer
A desktop computer is a personal computer in a form intended for regular use at a single location, as opposed to a mobile laptop or portable computer. Early desktop computers are designed to lay flat on the desk, while modern towers stand upright...

.
Steve Jobs visited Xerox PARC in 1979. He was excited by the revolutionary mouse-driven GUI of the Xerox Alto
Xerox Alto
The Xerox Alto was one of the first computers designed for individual use , making it arguably what is now called a personal computer. It was developed at Xerox PARC in 1973...

 and was keen to use these ideas back at Apple. By late 1979, Jobs successfully negotiated with Xerox for his Lisa team to receive two demonstrations of ongoing research projects at Xerox PARC; when the Apple team saw the demonstration of the Alto
Xerox Alto
The Xerox Alto was one of the first computers designed for individual use , making it arguably what is now called a personal computer. It was developed at Xerox PARC in 1973...

 computer they were able to see in action the basic elements of what constituted a workable GUI. A great deal of work was put into making the graphical interface into a mainstream commercial product by the Lisa team.

The Lisa was a major project at Apple, with more than 90 people participating on the design, plus more on the sales and marketing effort to launch the machine.
Byte
Byte (magazine)
BYTE magazine was a microcomputer magazine, influential in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s because of its wide-ranging editorial coverage...

 magazine credited Wayne Rosing
Wayne Rosing
Wayne Rosing has been involved as a key player in several landmark projects in the computing industry since the late 1970s. Gaining experience as an engineering manager at DEC and Data General in the 1970s, he became a director of engineering at Apple Computer in the early 1980s. There he led the...

 with being the most important person on the development of the computer's hardware until the machine went into production, at which point he became technical lead for the entire Lisa project. Bruce Daniels
Bruce Daniels
Dr. Bruce Daniels is an American computer programmer and business executive who has worked for Hewlett Packard, Apple Computer, Oracle, Borland, Sun Microsystems and his own start-up Singular Software, which created Mac database management software...

 was in charge of applications development, and Larry Tesler
Larry Tesler
Larry Tesler is a computer scientist working in the field of human-computer interaction. Tesler has worked at Xerox PARC, Apple Computer, Amazon.com, and Yahoo!...

 was in charge of system software. After a six-month period in which the user interface was designed, the hardware, operating system, and applications were all created in parallel.

Hardware

The hardware development team for the Lisa was headed by Robert Paratore.
The Lisa was first introduced on January 19, 1983 and cost US$9,995 ($21,693.67 in 2009 dollars). It was the second personal computer system with a graphical user interface
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...

 (GUI) to be sold commercially, the first being the Xerox Star
Xerox Star
The Star workstation, officially known as the Xerox 8010 Information System, was introduced by Xerox Corporation in 1981. It was the first commercial system to incorporate various technologies that today have become commonplace in personal computers, including a bitmapped display, a window-based...

. It used a Motorola 68000
Motorola 68000
The Motorola 68000 is a 16/32-bit CISC microprocessor core designed and marketed by Freescale Semiconductor...

 CPU
Central processing unit
The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...

 at a 5 MHz clock rate and had 1 MB
Megabyte
The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000...

 RAM.

Drives

The original Lisa had two Apple FileWare
Apple FileWare
FileWare floppy disk drives and diskettes were designed by Apple Computer as a higher-performance alternative to the Disk II and Disk III floppy systems used on the Apple II and Apple /// personal computers...

 5.25-inch double-sided floppy disk drives
Floppy disk
A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles...

, more commonly known by Apple's internal code name for the drive: "Twiggy
Apple FileWare
FileWare floppy disk drives and diskettes were designed by Apple Computer as a higher-performance alternative to the Disk II and Disk III floppy systems used on the Apple II and Apple /// personal computers...

". They had a capacity of approximately 871 kB each, but required special diskettes. The Macintosh, which was originally designed to have a single Twiggy drive, was revised to use a Sony 400 kB microfloppy drive in January 1984. An optional external 5 MB or, later, a 10 MB Apple ProFile
Apple ProFile
The ProFile was the first hard drive produced by Apple Computer, initially for use with the Apple III personal computer. The original model had a formatted capacity of 5 MB and connected to a special interface card that plugged into an Apple III slot...

 hard drive (originally designed for the Apple III
Apple III
The Apple III is a business-oriented personal computer produced and released by Apple Computer that was intended as the successor to the Apple II series, but largely considered a failure in the market. Development work on the Apple III started in late 1978 under the guidance of Dr. Wendell Sander...

) was available. With the introduction of the Lisa 2, an optional 10 MB internal proprietary hard disk manufactured by Apple, known as the "Widget" was also offered.

Lisa 2

The first hardware revision, the Lisa 2, released in January 1984 and was priced between $3,495 and $5,495 US. It was much less expensive than the original model and dropped the Twiggy floppy drives in favor of a single 400k Sony microfloppy. It was possible to purchase the Lisa 2 with as little as 512k RAM. An external ProFile and internal Widget drive were available as standard options in different configurations. In 1984, at the same time the Macintosh was officially announced, Apple offered free upgrades to the Lisa 2 to all Lisa 1 owners, by swapping the pair of Twiggy drives for a single 3.5-inch drive, and updating the boot ROM and I/O ROM. In addition, the Lisa 2's new front faceplate was included to accommodate the reconfigured floppy disk drive. With this change, the Lisa 2 had the notable distinction of introducing the new Apple inlaid logo, as well as the first Snow White design language
Snow White design language
The Snow White design language was an industrial design language developed by Hartmut Esslinger's Frog Design. Used by Apple Computer from 1984 to 1990, the scheme has vertical and horizontal stripes for decoration, ventilation, and the illusion that the computer enclosure is smaller than it...

 features.

There were relatively few third-party hardware offerings for the Lisa, as compared to the earlier Apple II
Apple II
The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977...

. AST offered a 1.5 MB memory board, which — when combined with the standard Apple 512 KB memory board — expanded the Lisa to a total of 2 MB of memory, the maximum the MMU
Memory management unit
A memory management unit , sometimes called paged memory management unit , is a computer hardware component responsible for handling accesses to memory requested by the CPU...

 could address.

Late in the product life of the Lisa, there were third-party hard disk drives, SCSI controllers, and double-sided 3½ inch floppy-disk upgrades. Unlike the original Macintosh
Macintosh 128K
The Macintosh 128K machine, released as the "Apple Macintosh", was the original Apple Macintosh personal computer. Its beige case contained a monitor and came with a keyboard and mouse. An indentation in the top of the case made it easier for the computer to be lifted and carried. It had a selling...

, the Lisa features expansion slots. Like the Apple II, it was an 'open system'. The Lisa 2 motherboard had a very basic backplane
Backplane
A backplane is a group of connectors connected in parallel with each other, so that each pin of each connector is linked to the same relative pin of all the other connectors forming a computer bus. It is used as a backbone to connect several printed circuit boards together to make up a complete...

 with virtually no electronic components, but plenty of edge connector
Edge connector
An edge connector is the portion of a printed circuit board consisting of traces leading to the edge of the board that are intended to plug into a matching socket. The edge connector is a money-saving device because it only requires a single discrete female connector , and they also tend to be...

 sockets/slots. There were two RAM slots, one CPU slot and one I/O slot all in parallel placement to each other. At the other end, there were three 'Lisa' slots, parallel to each other. This flexibility provided the potential for a developer to create a replacement for the CPU 'card' to upgrade the Lisa to run a newer CPU, albeit with potential limitations from other parts of the system.

Macintosh XL

In January 1985, following on the heels of the Macintosh, the Lisa 2/10 (with integrated 10 MB hard drive) was re-branded the Macintosh XL and with new software, positioned as Apple's high-end Macintosh. The price was lowered yet again, to $4000 and sales tripled, but (according to CEO Sculley) Apple would have lost money increasing production to meet the new demand. Apple discontinued the Macintosh XL, leaving an eight-month void in Apple's high-end product line until the Macintosh Plus
Macintosh Plus
The Macintosh Plus computer was the third model in the Macintosh line, introduced on January 16, 1986, two years after the original Macintosh and a little more than a year after the Macintosh 512K, with a price tag of US$2599...

 was introduced in 1986. Apple would not introduce a replacement computer with an internal hard drive or expansion slots until 1987.

Software

The Lisa operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

 featured cooperative (non-preemptive) multitasking
Computer multitasking
In computing, multitasking is a method where multiple tasks, also known as processes, share common processing resources such as a CPU. In the case of a computer with a single CPU, only one task is said to be running at any point in time, meaning that the CPU is actively executing instructions for...

 and virtual memory
Virtual memory
In computing, virtual memory is a memory management technique developed for multitasking kernels. This technique virtualizes a computer architecture's various forms of computer data storage , allowing a program to be designed as though there is only one kind of memory, "virtual" memory, which...

, then extremely advanced features for a personal computer. The use of virtual memory coupled with a fairly slow disk system made the system performance seem glacial at times. Based in part on advanced elements from the failed Apple III
Apple III
The Apple III is a business-oriented personal computer produced and released by Apple Computer that was intended as the successor to the Apple II series, but largely considered a failure in the market. Development work on the Apple III started in late 1978 under the guidance of Dr. Wendell Sander...

 SOS operating system released three years earlier, the Lisa also organized its files in hierarchal directories, making the use of large hard drives practical. The Macintosh would eventually adopt this disk organizational design as well for its HFS
Hierarchical File System
Hierarchical File System is a file system developed by Apple Inc. for use in computer systems running Mac OS. Originally designed for use on floppy and hard disks, it can also be found on read-only media such as CD-ROMs...

 filing system. Conceptually, the Lisa resembles the Xerox Star
Xerox Star
The Star workstation, officially known as the Xerox 8010 Information System, was introduced by Xerox Corporation in 1981. It was the first commercial system to incorporate various technologies that today have become commonplace in personal computers, including a bitmapped display, a window-based...

 in the sense that it was envisioned as an office computing system; consequently, Lisa has two main user modes: the Lisa Office System and the Workshop. The Lisa Office System is the GUI environment for end users. The Workshop was a program development environment, and was almost entirely text-based, though it used a GUI text editor. The Lisa Office System was eventually renamed "7/7", in reference to the seven supplied application programs: LisaWrite, LisaCalc, LisaDraw, LisaGraph, LisaProject
LisaProject
LisaProject was the first graphical project management software. Developed for the Apple Lisa computer, LisaProject was conceived and implemented by Debra Willrett of SoloSoft and developed for Apple's Lisa computer....

, LisaList, and LisaTerminal.

Third-party software

A significant impediment to third-party software on the Lisa was the fact that, when first launched, the Lisa Office System could not be used to write programs for itself: a separate development OS was required called Lisa Workshop. During this development process, an engineer ran the two OSes in a dual-boot config, writing and compiling code on one machine and testing it on the other. Later, the same Lisa Workshop was used to develop software for the Macintosh. After a few years, a Macintosh-native development system was developed. For most of its lifetime, the Lisa never went beyond the original seven applications that Apple had deemed enough to "do everything."

MacWorks

In April 1984, following the success of the Macintosh, Apple introduced MacWorks, a software emulation environment which allowed the Lisa to run Macintosh System software and applications. MacWorks helped make the Lisa more attractive to potential customers, but did not enable the Macintosh emulation to access the hard disk until September. In January 1985, re-branded MacWorks XL, it became the primary system application designed to turn the Lisa into the Macintosh XL
Macintosh XL
Macintosh XL was a modified version of the Apple Lisa personal computer made by Apple Computer, Inc. In the Macintosh XL configuration, the computer shipped with MacWorks XL, a Lisa program that allowed 64 K Macintosh ROM emulation...

.

Reception

The Apple Lisa was a commercial failure for Apple, the largest since the failure of the Apple III
Apple III
The Apple III is a business-oriented personal computer produced and released by Apple Computer that was intended as the successor to the Apple II series, but largely considered a failure in the market. Development work on the Apple III started in late 1978 under the guidance of Dr. Wendell Sander...

 of 1980. The intended business customers were reluctant to purchase the machine because of its high price (nearly $10,000), making it largely unable to compete with the less expensive IBM PC
IBM PC
The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981...

s, which were already beginning to dominate business desktop computing. The largest Lisa customer was NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

, which used LisaProject
LisaProject
LisaProject was the first graphical project management software. Developed for the Apple Lisa computer, LisaProject was conceived and implemented by Debra Willrett of SoloSoft and developed for Apple's Lisa computer....

 for project management and was eventually faced with significant problems when the Lisa was discontinued.

The release of the Apple Macintosh
Macintosh 128K
The Macintosh 128K machine, released as the "Apple Macintosh", was the original Apple Macintosh personal computer. Its beige case contained a monitor and came with a keyboard and mouse. An indentation in the top of the case made it easier for the computer to be lifted and carried. It had a selling...

 in 1984, which was faster and much less expensive, was the most significant factor in the Lisa's demise. Two later Lisa models were released (the Lisa 2 and its Mac ROM
Old World ROM
Old World ROM Macintosh computers are the Macintosh models that use a Macintosh Toolbox ROM chip, usually in a socket . All Macs prior to the iMac use Old World ROM, while the iMac and all subsequent models until the introduction of the Intel-based EFI Models are New World ROM machines...

-enabled sibling Macintosh XL
Macintosh XL
Macintosh XL was a modified version of the Apple Lisa personal computer made by Apple Computer, Inc. In the Macintosh XL configuration, the computer shipped with MacWorks XL, a Lisa program that allowed 64 K Macintosh ROM emulation...

) before the Lisa line was discontinued in April 1985. In 1986, Apple offered all Lisa/XL owners the opportunity to turn in their computer and US$1,498.00, in return for a Macintosh Plus
Macintosh Plus
The Macintosh Plus computer was the third model in the Macintosh line, introduced on January 16, 1986, two years after the original Macintosh and a little more than a year after the Macintosh 512K, with a price tag of US$2599...

 and Hard Disk 20
Hard Disk 20
The Macintosh Hard Disk 20 was the first hard drive developed by Apple Computer specifically for use with the Macintosh 512K. Introduced on September 17, 1985, it was part of Apple's long awaited solution toward completing the Macintosh Office announced in January 1985...

 (a US$4,098.00 value at the time).

Historical importance

The Apple Lisa was immediately recognized as a significant machine, with Byte for example opining it more important than the IBM PC
IBM PC
The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981...

. Further, though a limited number of Lisas were sold, the Lisa software, in combination with an Apple dot-matrix printer, could produce documents that surpassed other comparably-priced options available at the time. This one compelling usage meant that the Lisa was introduced into a number of larger offices, and due to the price, the number of people who had used a Lisa was much larger than the number of Lisas sold.

An often-overlooked feature the Lisa system used is its early harnessing of document-centric computing instead of application-centric computing. On a Macintosh, Windows, or Linux system, a user typically seeks a program. In the Lisa system, users use stationery to begin using an application. Apple implemented stationery documents on System 7
System 7
System 7 is the name of a Macintosh operating system introduced in 1991.System 7 may also refer to:* System 7 , a British dance/ambient band* System 7 , 1991 album* IBM System/7, a 1970s computer system...

 in 1991 and attempted to further advance this approach on the Mac platform later with OpenDoc
OpenDoc
OpenDoc was a multi-platform software componentry framework standard for compound documents, intended as an alternative to Microsoft's Object Linking and Embedding ....

. Microsoft also later implemented stationery in a limited fashion via the Windows Start menu for Microsoft Office.

International significance

Within a few months of the Lisa's introduction in the US, fully translated versions of the software and documentation were commercially available for British, French, German, Italian, and Spanish markets, followed by several Scandinavian versions shortly thereafter. The user interface for the OS, all seven applications, LisaGuide, and the Lisa diagnostics (in ROM) can be fully translated, without any programming required, using resource files and a translation kit. The keyboard can identify its native language layout, and the entire user experience will be in that language, including any hardware diagnostic messages.

Although several foreign-language keyboard layouts were available, the Dvorak
Dvorak Simplified Keyboard
The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard is a keyboard layout patented in 1936 by Dr. August Dvorak and his brother-in-law, Dr. William Dealey. Over the years several slight variations were designed by the team led by Dvorak or by ANSI...

 keyboard layout was never ported to the Lisa, though such porting had been available for the Apple III, IIe, and IIc, and later for the Macintosh. Keyboard-mapping on the Lisa was complex and required building a new OS/kernel. All kernels contain images for all layouts, so due to serious memory constraints, keyboard layouts were stored as differences from a set of standard layouts, thus only a few bytes are needed to accommodate most additional layouts. A notable exception is the Dvorak layout that moves just about every key and thus requires hundreds of extra bytes of precious kernel storage regardless of whether it were needed.

Each localized version (built on a globalized core) requires grammatical, linguistic, and cultural adaptations throughout the user interface, including formats for dates, numbers, times, currencies, sorting, even for word and phrase order in alerts and dialog boxes. A kit was provided, and the translation work was done by native-speaking Apple marketing staff in each country. This localization effort resulted in about as many Lisa unit sales outside the US as inside the US over the product's lifespan, while setting new standards for future localized software products, and for global project co-ordination.

The end of the Lisa

In 1987, Sun Remarketing
Sun Remarketing
Sun Remarketing was a retail company, located in Cache Valley, Utah, that specialized in reselling old Apple Computer software and hardware, including Apple II and Apple Macintosh parts such as motherboards and peripherals...

 purchased about 5,000 Macintosh XL
Macintosh XL
Macintosh XL was a modified version of the Apple Lisa personal computer made by Apple Computer, Inc. In the Macintosh XL configuration, the computer shipped with MacWorks XL, a Lisa program that allowed 64 K Macintosh ROM emulation...

s and upgraded them. Some leftover Lisa computers and spare parts are still available today.

In 1989, Apple disposed of approximately 2,700 unsold Lisas in a guarded landfill in Logan, Utah
Logan, Utah
-Layout of the City:Logan's city grid originates from its Main and Center Street block, with Main Street running north and south, and Center east and west. Each block north, east, south, or west of the origin accumulates in additions of 100 , though some streets have non-numeric names...

, in order to receive a tax write-off on the unsold inventory.

Like other early GUI computers, working Lisas are now fairly valuable collectors items, for which people will pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars. The original model is the most sought after, although working ProFile and Widget hard disks, which are necessary for running the Lisa OS, are also particularly valued.

See also
  • Macintosh 128K
    Macintosh 128K
    The Macintosh 128K machine, released as the "Apple Macintosh", was the original Apple Macintosh personal computer. Its beige case contained a monitor and came with a keyboard and mouse. An indentation in the top of the case made it easier for the computer to be lifted and carried. It had a selling...

  • People: Bill Atkinson
    Bill Atkinson
    Bill Atkinson is an American computer engineer and photographer. Atkinson worked at Apple Computer from 1978 to 1990. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of California, San Diego, where Apple Macintosh developer Jef Raskin was one of his professors...

    , John Couch
    John Couch (American executive)
    John Couch is an American technology executive most closely associated with Apple, Inc. He currently serves as the company's Vice President of Education....

    , Steve Jobs
    Steve Jobs
    Steven Paul Jobs was an American businessman and inventor widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution. He was co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc...

    , Rich Page
    Rich Page
    Richard Page was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer in the 1980s, and he later joined Steve Jobs at NeXT. In 1992 Rich Page left Next and within weeks after his resignation, several VP at Next left too....

    , Jef Raskin
    Jef Raskin
    Jef Raskin was an American human-computer interface expert best known for starting the Macintosh project for Apple in the late 1970s.-Early years and education:...

    , Wayne Rosing
    Wayne Rosing
    Wayne Rosing has been involved as a key player in several landmark projects in the computing industry since the late 1970s. Gaining experience as an engineering manager at DEC and Data General in the 1970s, he became a director of engineering at Apple Computer in the early 1980s. There he led the...

    , Brad Silverberg
    Brad Silverberg
    Brad Silverberg is most noted for his work at Microsoft in 1990–1999 as Senior VP and product manager for MS-DOS, Windows, Internet Explorer, and Office...

    , Larry Tesler
    Larry Tesler
    Larry Tesler is a computer scientist working in the field of human-computer interaction. Tesler has worked at Xerox PARC, Apple Computer, Amazon.com, and Yahoo!...

  • Technology: History of the graphical user interface
    History of the graphical user interface
    The graphical user interface, understood as the use of graphic icons and a pointing device to control a computer, has a four decade history of incremental refinements built on some constant core principles...

    , Cut and paste
    Cut and paste
    In human-computer interaction, cut and paste and copy and paste offer user-interface interaction techniques for transferring text, data, files or objects from a source to a destination. Most ubiquitously, users require the ability to cut and paste sections of plain text...

    , Mouse
    Mouse (computing)
    In computing, a mouse is a pointing device that functions by detecting two-dimensional motion relative to its supporting surface. Physically, a mouse consists of an object held under one of the user's hands, with one or more buttons...

    , Mouse gesture
    Mouse gesture
    In computing, a pointing device gesture or mouse gesture is a way of combining pointing device movements and clicks which the software recognizes as a specific command. Pointing device gestures can provide quick access to common functions of a program. They can also be useful for people who have...

    , Xerox Star
    Xerox Star
    The Star workstation, officially known as the Xerox 8010 Information System, was introduced by Xerox Corporation in 1981. It was the first commercial system to incorporate various technologies that today have become commonplace in personal computers, including a bitmapped display, a window-based...

    , Visi On
    Visi On
    VisiCorp's Visi On was a short-lived but influential graphical user interface-based operating environment program for IBM PC compatible personal computers running early versions of DOS...

    , Apple ProFile
    Apple ProFile
    The ProFile was the first hard drive produced by Apple Computer, initially for use with the Apple III personal computer. The original model had a formatted capacity of 5 MB and connected to a special interface card that plugged into an Apple III slot...

    , NeXT
    NeXT
    Next, Inc. was an American computer company headquartered in Redwood City, California, that developed and manufactured a series of computer workstations intended for the higher education and business markets...

    , QuickDraw
    QuickDraw
    QuickDraw is the 2D graphics library and associated Application Programming Interface which is a core part of the classic Apple Macintosh operating system. It was initially written by Bill Atkinson and Andy Hertzfeld. QuickDraw still exists as part of the libraries of Mac OS X, but has been...

    , Pascal programming language
  • Computer Acronyms

External links
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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